IBM On-Demand Supply Chain Center

Through a Shared University Research (SUR) award from IBM – consisting of IBM software, eServer and storage technologies – the Broad School, under the leadership of Dr. David Closs, John H. McConnell Chair in Supply Chain Management, and IBM created The Center for On Demand Supply Chain Research. The IBM Supply Chain Laboratory, located in room 110 of the Eppley Center, serves as an environment for modeling and analysis of an on-demand supply chain. Broad School graduate students and faculty use the laboratory to study, simulate and test the key relationships in an end to end supply chain, focusing on the dynamic flow of information and the resulting interdependencies between them. Their work is expected to help IBM and other companies build dynamic supply chains that can sense and rapidly respond to changing customer demands and market conditions.

Since its inception, the Broad School’s Marketing and Supply Chain department has infused the lab’s supply chain technology into its curriculum through Instructional Related Publications focused on using i2 Supply Chain Software and IBM WBI Business Process Modeler Software.

“With the development of the lab to date, and the excellent work that has resulted in curriculum development and integration for example, we have improved our pool of qualified graduate and undergraduate students for hiring into the ISC,” said John Dischinger, director of IBM’s Integrated Supply Chain (ISC). “Additionally, we are beginning to see the results from a focused research agenda and will continue to rely on MSU for a cornerstone of our research efforts on the ‘Grand Challenges’ we are and will be facing in the ISC.”